Halflife: lightgamma, texgamma bug

[hotactions]

When you change lightgamma cvar you always get killed or write more than 1 time you get client crashed this should be fixed.

also texgamma sometimes crashing client

[Tele42]

Please include all the information requested at https://github.com/ValveSoftware/halflife#reporting-issues.

[hotactions]

@Tele42 , its easy to test yourself in game, no need to descriptive these, it has nothing todo with missleading description, its simple and imformative, i can upload record (.dem) on request.

[Tele42]

@hotactions, you are missing basic information like what game, what OS you are running on, and what video card/drivers are in use.

[grz0]

+1
OS details:

Processor Information:
Vendor: GenuineIntel
Speed: 2201 Mhz
8 logical processors
4 physical processors
HyperThreading: Supported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Unsupported
SSE41: Supported
SSE42: Supported

Network Information:
Network Speed:

Operating System Version:
"Fedora release 18 (Spherical Cow)" (32 bit)
Kernel Name: Linux
Kernel Version: 3.7.5-201.fc18.i686.PAE
X Server vendor: Fedora Project
X Server release: 11302000

Video Card:
Driver: Intel Open Source Technology Center Mesa DRI Intel(R) Sandybridge Mobile

Driver Version: 2.1 Mesa 9.0.1
Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
Monitor Refresh Rate: 59 Hz

VendorID: 0x1002
DeviceID: 0x6742
Number of Monitors: 1
Number of Logical Video Cards: 2
Primary Display Resolution: 1366 x 768
Desktop Resolution: 1366 x 768
Primary Display Size: 13,54" x 7,64" (15,51" diag)
34,4cm x 19,4cm (39,4cm diag)
Primary VRAM Not Detected

Sound card:
Audio device: Intel CougarPoint HDMI

Memory:
RAM: 5964 Mb

Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
LANG: pl_PL.UTF-8
Microphone: Not set
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 325908 Mb
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 262770 Mb

Installed software:

Recent Failure Reports:

[hotactions]

@Tele42 it doesen't matter its not issue with my software, hardware, please don't tell me what to do and i will not tell you where you should go, anyways....

Processor Information:
Vendor: GenuineIntel
Speed: 3477 Mhz
2 logical processors
1 physical processors
HyperThreading: Supported
FCMOV: Supported
SSE2: Supported
SSE3: Supported
SSSE3: Supported
SSE4a: Unsupported
SSE41: Unsupported
SSE42: Unsupported

Network Information:
Network Speed:

Operating System Version:
Windows 8 (32 bit)
NTFS: Supported
Crypto Provider Codes: Supported 311 0x0 0x0 0x0

Video Card:
Driver: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS

DirectX Driver Name:  nvd3dum.dll
Driver Version:  9.18.13.1090
DirectX Driver Version:  9.18.13.1090
Driver Date: 29 Dec 2012
DirectX Card: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS
VendorID:  0x10de
DeviceID:  0x400
Number of Monitors:  1
Number of Logical Video Cards:  1
No SLI or Crossfire Detected
Primary Display Resolution:  1280 x 1024
Desktop Resolution: 1280 x 1024
Primary Display Size: 13.39" x 10.63"  (17.09" diag)
                                        34.0cm x 27.0cm  (43.4cm diag)
Primary Bus: PCI Express 16x
Primary VRAM: 512 MB
Supported MSAA Modes:  2x 4x 8x 

Sound card:
Audio device: Speakers (SoundMAX Integrated D

Memory:
RAM: 2047 Mb

Miscellaneous:
UI Language: English
Microphone: Not set
Media Type: DVD
Total Hard Disk Space Available: 78180 Mb
Largest Free Hard Disk Block: 24832 Mb
OS Install Date: Lap 01 2012
Game Controller: None detected

[alfred-valve]

@hotactions , providings you OS details with each report really helps when reproducing the bug, so thanks for including it.

[hotactions]

@alfred-valve thank you for examining it, i have really appreciate, i guess you need that for a logs, thanks again for your time spent coding engine.

[Corre1ation]

There's no need to reproduce this bug since lightgamma gives an unfair advantage when changed. That's the why use of this command on tournaments is restricted. Compare the screens below: the first one is with normal lightgamma (2.5) and the second one is with adjusted lightgamma (0.5).

As for the texgamma, it only changes the skybox gamma. At least, it's the only visible change I notice. Screens are with texgamma 2, 1 and 5:

[AnAkkk]

lightgamma is actually supposed to be locked to 2.5, there is a protection that prevents it to be changed, but that protection doesn't work correctly. Might be the same for texgamma.
Maybe removing both cvars would be better.

[Corre1ation]

I think it's better to make these commands available only if sv_cheats is set to 1 as it's with timerefresh. This will remove any further discussions on use of these two commands.

[alfred-valve]

Next update will lock lightgamma and textgamma to default values unless sv_cheats is set.

I couldn't reproduce a crash when changing the lightgamma value (before my other changes) and being killed by changing that value is by design.

[AnAkkk]

If the lock is done at the same place as before, it's not going to work though. The current one doesn't work correctly.

[alfred-valve]

The lock isn't there, it is deep in the guts of the engine now.

[Corre1ation]

@alfred-valve, one's not able to reproduce this crash unless playing on a map. This is the point of exploiting this protection: you change this value in game menu, enter some server and play with adjusted lightgamma even though the value of 2.5 is still displayed in the console.

[alfred-valve]

Okay @Corre1ation , you can't change its value in cs 1.6 now anyway, so problem solved :)

[samiyjestkiy]

@alfred-valve, actually u can. just join ANY server, type sv_cheats 1 and then type lightgamma 0 and it works fine.
i repeat, it works on ANY online servers.
u shud check this and fix.

[alfred-valve]

There is code in CS that detects that change and then kills your player, so it doesn't work.

[AnAkkk]

I just tested and it does kill you ONCE, but that useless as even if lightgamma is back to 2.5, you still have the lightgamma you set before for the next rounds.
What I've done is:
1) sv_cheats 1 and lightgamma 0
2) join a server
3) I get instantly killed and lightgamma is set back to 2.5
4) Next round, I respawn, and it's just as if lightgamma was still set to 0

Any reason why you don't just remove that cvar?

[samiyjestkiy]

yeap. u got killed ONCE and then u already have ALL TEXTURES bright so u can continue playing with /bright/ map.
why wouldnt you make SV_CHEATS cvar available only for the server only?
it would solve this problem/bug.

[AnAkkk]

It wouldn't solve this problem as the client can't know whether sv_cheats is enabled or not on the server, as there isn't a replicated cvar mechanism on HL1.

[mikela-valve]

Hi all, I've made a change in the latest CS beta that disables non-default lightgamma and texgamma altogether seeing as how even with sv_cheats set you are still killed after adjusting the cvars, so I think the intent was for them to not be changeable for CS. If this is a problem I can look into some way for the server to make the decision as to whether lightgamma is settable or not.

[AnAkkk]

Sounds good!

[ghost]

But now you can't adjust texgamma at all! Allow a range of 2 - 3 for texgamma. On some monitors, the standard value looks just awful! Fixed by setting texgamma 2.5 value

[mikela-valve]

@drogga Unfortunately I don't think I can unlock the value of texgamma, though I'd be up to setting a different default value if there is some consensus of a better one.

I did some testing around it with different values and it appears that only some of the lighting updates dynamically when changing texgamma, it mostly affects precomputed texture gamma and so needs to be set before textures are loaded. See these images:

texgamma = 1.8 (the minimum)

texgamma = 3.0 (the maximum)

[ghost]

Maybe I found a compromise solution for "texgamma". Suffice it to disable change this option in game, leaving the possibility to set the value only once, through cfg. This will solve all the problems. Another similar way - remove option "texgamma" from the console, but instead add a startup parameter "-texgamma" or "-tex" (eg "-tex 2.5") - it's just solve the problem by making it impossible to change a texgamma already in the game (when changing the card).

texgamma allows you to choose the right value for graphics settings. It is also useful when creating a gaming video. Completely disable it is not desirable.

Checkin this:

1) gamma 2.5; brightness 2; texgamma 2

Normal balanced display (default)

2) gamma 3.0; brightness 2; texgamma 2

Whitish textures, completely wrong

3) gamma 3.0; brightness 2; texgamma 2.5

Already acceptable!

I think that with an increase in the value of GAMMA, TEXGAMMA must also be raised to maintain balance.
With gamma 2.5 - texgamma 2.0; with gamma 3.0 - texgamma 2.5

The only complaint is the possibility of abuse "texgamma" - is achieved by changing the value in an already running game (if originally stood for "0", then we went to the server and changed to "3"), then when changing maps, models are a bit lighter:

This is a bug that, in a good way, should just be fixed. But if it is very difficult to fix, it is enough to block the change of texgamma in the game and disable values ​​less than 2.0 and more than 3.0. As well as that you could ask texgamma only once before starting the game (start parameters or through the CFG, as I wrote above). This will solve all the problems.

CS 1.6 not rich in image settings, I think shouldn’t take away the latest customization options from players and moviemakers.

[AnAkkk]

Except that texgamma is not supposed to be changed, before or during a game - a lot of people would see it as an unfair advantage, and I am pretty sure that using non default values of this cvar was actually banned from all competitions. e.g. you can find it in IEM rulebook.

[mikela-valve]

@AnAkkk Good news, I recently got to adding synchronization of sv_cheats between the client and server so I'll be returning this back to its original logic of allowing texgamma and lightgamma to be changed if the server is running with sv_cheats enabled. This should be the be the best compromise to still allow them to be usable for non-competitive play at least.

[AnAkkk]

@mikela-valve: would that still not cause issues because when you change texgamma and lightgamma it does not reload the textures, so even if they get forced to different values due to sv_cheats, it wouldn't undo modifications they did to the game?

[mikela-valve]

@AnAkkk You're right, I was thinking that enough of the lighting was calculated during a map load (so it would be enough for the server to change the value on the client during initial connection) but it appears that a full client reload is currently necessary to recompute that.

There are some workarounds I could implement as a roundabout way of enforcing this like preventing a client that has changed its lightgamma/texgamma values since startup from connecting to a server that doesn't have sv_cheats set but for now it's probably best to leave these values fixed and see how that goes for the community.

Thanks!

[mikela-valve]

Closing this as fixed, we can open a new issue in the future if necessary for determining how to re-enable some things if possible.